The Document Conversion software controls file conversion to TIFF, TXT
and JPEG by first launching the file owner application (e.g. Word, Excel,
Netscape), then instructing the owner application to print the document
using Windows shell commands.

Our experience is that no one utility can convert all file formats.
However, most applications have a mechanism used by the Windows shell to
support file printing. File associations are based on the file extension.
Any application that has a DDE, OLE, or command line print capability can
be adapted to work with our conversion server. We then use our proprietary
technology to monitor the formatting process that occurs during the print
process, allowing us to produce TIFF, JPEG, and TEXT output from any file
type.

A Print Monitoring application (Server and Carrier Grade) monitors the
status of the conversion process, closing any dialog boxes that may come
up. Our unique learn mode built in capability ensures that the
monitoring process only needs to be told once what to do, and from then on
dialogs and problem applications are closed automatically.

Certain conversions can be very
compute-power intensive and might overload the Web Server or otherwise
interfere with its normal operation

Where the Web Server is UNIX or OS/2-based
and the conversions are primarily between document types used by Windows
applications, off-loading these conversions to a Windows-based system may be
the simpler technical approach

Many Windows applications use file formats
that are proprietary and subject to change with each new release. Use of the
original application to convert the document gives the best possible
fidelity, and also allows new formats to be supported as soon as the
application becomes available, rather than waiting for third party tool
suppliers to update their conversion products

Security: Certain files may contain viruses,
invisible text, or represent some form of security risk. By isolating
conversion on a separate server, documents can be cleaned by
converting them to TIFF, without possible contamination of the central
server.

First, download one of the Demo applications. These are self-extracting
EXEs that install the conversion control application and the conversion
drivers. Then, install standard applications to test the conversions.
Source code sample projects re supplied with the demo application,
providing a starting point for product integration and development. API interfaces include OCX, DLL, PIPE, and
EXE command line.

If additional support is required, our support staff is happy to assist
you.

For web based document conversion, additional sample ASP sample code
can be made available.

All the downloadable demos contain sample VB and C++ projects that
demonstrate code integration with the Conversion Engine. Sample code for
WEB integration is available on request. Programming requirements are
minimal. We expect that you will be up and converting within a day.

We also welcome custom work to help integrate our product into your
development environment. In addition, we provide open access to our
technical staff, in that we can get any problems that might come up dealt
with as quickly as possible.

UNIX and LINUX pose special problems that we feel are difficult to
resolve. As most documents are Windows based, we will likely keep to our
Windows roots for a while to come. The NT conversion server can easily be
controlled from a UNIX machine through a pipe communication protocol.
Sample code, and an overview document can be provided on request.

The conversion server can be isolated on its own network, separate
from the corporate or web servers. Files can be uploaded to the conversion
server via FTP or through a secure network communication protocol, similar
to how any internet addressable computer is accessed.. Output files (TIFF,
JPEG, and TXT) can be returned the same way, and are by definition virus
free.

If the conversion server does get contaminated, then the machine can be
re-installed from a clean backup, without having to bring down the
rest of your network.

We've built a job monitoring application (Wpdaemon.exe) that we ship
with the server conversion engine that monitors the printing job, can
'kill' applications that don't close, and can be taught to 'close' dialogs
that come up prompting for information (e.g. Internet Explorer will ask you
to confirm the name of the printer to print to). Reliability therefore
goes up with the number of jobs printed (each new problem type only occurs
once, from then on the daemon has been taught what to do).

We currently benchmark our conversion speed at 1 second per page on very conservative hardware. A
single computer should be able to convert 60 pages a minute, 3600 pages an
hour, 86,400 pages a day, not allowing for program load time overhead. Throughput can be improved by adding additional
machines.

The key to our Carrier Grade Conversion Engine architecture is our
'hub' conversion process, where the 'hub' queues up the jobs, and separate
slave computers handle the conversion. This results in a very scalable
solution, in that if you need more horsepower, all you need do is add
additional computers to the network. This also means the web server does
not get bogged down handling conversions, and instead concentrates on
serving web pages while a separate machine handles conversions.

Conversion of a Word document requires tremendous resources. To
complicate matters further, most applications (including WORD) do not
handle multiple simultaneous conversions well. Since computers are
relatively cheap, it's a lot easier to pass off the conversion process to
a slave machine than it is to debug multiple conversions all on the same
machine.

A conservatively-built slave can convert a 3-page Word document in
approximately 10 seconds, of which 4 seconds is spent loading Word; if
Word is already loaded, the conversion time is about 6 seconds. Assuming
you do not leave Word loaded, a slave should be able to convert 360
3-page documents an hour, 8600 documents (25800 pages) a day. A conversion server hub initially
is licensed for 10 conversion slaves, rendering a throughput of 60 3-page
documents a minute. Additional slaves can be added to increase
throughput.

Our traditional customers are companies in the unified communication
business that need a Tiff print driver on the client work station in order to send faxes from the desktop. We license
our products to Microsoft Corporation, Nortel Networks, Lucent
Technologies, MCI Telecommunications, Mail.com, Globe Wireless, Verso (MessageClick), and other large and small businesses.

The Document Conversion Server is a newer product for us, used by MCI,
Message Click, and Global Wireless to name a few. We are putting a lot of
development effort on improving our Document Conversion Server product.